1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to storage bags and more particularly, to an airtight, water-resistant, semi-foldable, and recloseable storage bag for enclosing items such as food products or cosmetics. The storage bag of the present invention is self-standing, disposable, and pressure sealed around its mouth
2. Description of the Related Art
Finding an appropriate carrying container for a person's lunch or other personal items that is properly sized, convenient to use, disposable, and consumer friendly is not easy. The consumer market is full of flexible containers made of different materials and having a variety of shapes and sizes. However, finding a flexible container that is appropriate for a specific need or that possesses the characteristics needed under specific circumstances can be challenging. A flexible carrying bag or a flexible storage container is often either too small or too large or too oddly shaped to meet a person's needs and requires frequent cleaning. For example, a flexible carrying bag may be easily carried by hand but may not fit conveniently into a larger enclosure, such as a purse. A flexible storage container may fit neatly onto a shelf but be very difficult to carry in a person's hand.
It would extremely advantageous to have a flexible container that could be readily used for both the storage and the transport of a wide variety of items. The prior art describes a number of flexible storage bags, for example, a recloseable container is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,182 issued on Mar. 14, 1995 to S.C. Gaible et al. The recloseable plastic bag has extruded plastic side walls with a profile strip or web along an open end of the bag for receiving printed information for identifying bag contents and related information.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,094 issued on Apr. 4, 1995 to M. Tomic describes a recloseable zipper for a recloseable bag. The recloseable zipper consists of a pair of closures that are disposed adjacent and opposite to one another. The closures are configured to interlock with one another over a predetermined length and at least one of the closures is provided with intermittent transverse notches to enhance the ease of interlocking the closures. A recloseable stand-up bag is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,788,378 issued on Aug. 4, 1998 to T. R. Thomas. The recloseable bag is manufactured in a generally vertical production line. The recloseable bag is suitable for stand-alone marketing, or placing inside of a rectangular box container such as a cereal box.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.